“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” - George W. Bush

Friday, September 08, 2017

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday that he had not seen a shred of evidence of outside interference into the feds’ probe into Russian meddling in the presidential election.

“I can say very confidently that I have not detected any whiff of interference with that investigation,” Wray said at an Intelligence and National Security Summit in Washington.

MORE CLINTON SMOKE AND MIRRORS:

Google says it found no trace of Russia’s interference in US election on its ad platforms

Published time: 8 Sep, 2017 02:17 Edited time: 8 Sep, 2017 10:05

Google has said it has failed to unearth any facts that would implicate Moscow in exploiting its advertising tools to manipulate the US elections. It comes after Facebook said it had found dozens of Russia-linked fake pages promoting divisive US-related issues.

“We’re always monitoring for abuse or violations of our policies and we’ve seen no evidence this type of ad campaign was run on our platforms,” Google said in a statement Thursday, as cited by Reuters. The search engine giant was asked to comment on the issue in wake of the allegations shared by Facebook, its fellow online advertiser, a day earlier.

In its report Wednesday, Facebook appeared to link Moscow to some 3,000 political ads run by 470 “inauthentic” accounts between June 2015 and May 2017 that touched on US topics ranging from gun right to LGBT rights and immigration. The only grounds given for the claim was that the pages were “affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia.”

While Facebook noted that the most part of the said advertisements did not promote any candidate or even did not include any specific reference to the US presidential campaign, some of the US lawmakers have already jumped to conclusions.

Sen. Mark Warner, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of the bodies probing alleged Russia’s meddling in the US elections, who met with Facebook officials back in July, was quick to blame Russia for waging a wide-reaching social media campaign to influence US public opinion.

"It appeared to me that the very social media sites that we rely on for virtually everything – our Facebooks, Googles and Twitters – it was my belief the Russians were using those sites to intervene in our elections," Warner said during the Intelligence and National Security Summit in Washington on Thursday, as cited by CNN, calling the revelations provided by Facebook only “a tip of the iceberg.”

Warner claimed that that while not mentioning any candidates or the fact of the elections, the ads were targeting American voters and aimed at “voter suppression.”

He said he expects Twitter to follow in the footsteps of Facebook, which has already submitted its report to special counsel Robert Mueller, who is tasked with investigating alleged Russia’s interference, and produce one of its own. Twitter, however, has not commented on the issue so far.

As the congressional investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling in the US election drags on 10 months after the vote with any hard evidence explicitly pointing to the role of the Russian authorities yet to be produced, the diplomatic feud between Washington and Moscow has been exacerbated by recent searches in Russian diplomatic compounds in the US, including in the consulate in San Francisco. The properties were seized by the US authorities in what Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described as a “flagrant violation of international norms.”

Moscow announced it is initiating legal proceedings to get the properties returned.

Russia has repeatedly denied any allegations it interfered in the election campaign. In an interview to filmmaker Oliver Stone in June, Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, accused the US in meddling in Russia’s latest presidential elections of 2012 by campaigning on the side of the Russian opposition.

There is nothing you or anyone else, including Trump, can do about government debt. There is no political constituency that would tolerate the fix through austerity. No economy can tolerate the attempt to pay it off through taxation. Frugality has gone the way of telephone booths and soon to be single sex bathrooms.

No multicultural society in any social democratic state will "pay the debt".

The leader is worried. He grows tetchy. Investigations are closing in on him. Former aides, even a family member, are suspected of corrupt dealings with a foreign company. He gets irritable, lashes out at “the left” and the “fake news media.” He claims there is a “witch hunt,” and raves about “a coup.” His tolerance for dissent is zero.

He takes to social media to lash out at detractors and exalt his brilliance. That gives him a rush. Then nagging doubt takes hold again. What has he achieved? Nothing really. He’s kept up the volume to disguise his ineptness but that will hardly secure his place in history. The leader has exploited fear, cultivated friends in the media prepared to genuflect, smeared with vulgarity an office once occupied by giants. He has shown a great love of walls.

Of course, he evades the truth. This is important because the truth is ugly. Nothing is going to change, least of all for those most oppressed. The point is the insidious corruption of society from above. Accuse the media of brainwashing while doing the brainwashing yourself. Power is showmanship. It’s about winning, nothing more. He’s kept his wife in the style to which she’s accustomed, and that does not come cheap. Losing is for losers...

The article is about Benjamin Netanyahu. It might as well be about Maduro, Trump, Duterte, any other embattled leader whether leaning right or left. The words of the day, fake news, conspiracies, coups, the media, the left if you are right, the right if you are left. Words. Appeals to the base. Trinkets for the natives.

And the base, the minions if you like, shout oorah. But the base is shrinking. Shit happens.

To the annoyance of those factional apologists who have insisted that Israel has actually been serious in their public statements about some fictional 'two-state' solution, the state, with its well-entrenched right wing majority, now seems to be actually coming out of the closet on the reality of the situation.

...As with Trump, taboos crumble. Members of Netanyahu’s right-wing government outdo each other with obscene schemes for annexation of large areas of the West Bank, or the expulsion of Arabs from Israel proper. Attacks multiply on a free press and pro-peace nongovernmental organizations and the “left” in general. The Knesset voted this year to legalize settlement outposts on private Palestinian land in what was called the application of Israeli sovereignty. The Supreme Court’s independence has been targeted, without success so far.

The no-state solution advances. This is unsurprising. No democracy can be immune to running an undemocratic system of oppression for a half-century in territory under its control. Israel was conceived as a state of laws. If it is not, it betrays its 1948 founding charter. This commits the nascent state to “freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel.”

James Baker, as United States secretary of state, once gave the number of the White House switchboard and told the Israelis: “When you’re serious about peace, call us.” Trump should give his alter ego the same treatment — and wait for those investigations to run their course.

...The Jared-Jason jitney — Trump’s son-in-law and Jason Greenblatt, his former chief legal officer now charged with resolving the world’s most intractable conflict in their spare time — rolls into town but its drivers don’t say much. They listen. They nod. They take notes.

It’s hard not to pity the pale son-in-law. Netanyahu’s pursuit of the no-state solution has shed some camouflage. Last month in the West Bank, he said, “We are here to stay forever. There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel. This is the inheritance of our ancestors. This is our land.” This was after he declared in the White House that Israel intends to “retain the overriding security control over the entire area west of the Jordan River.” Even the demilitarized Palestinian state to which Netanyahu gave a very conditional nod in 2009 has floated off into the ether. It had its uses: a decoy to cement the status quo...

MoreSEOUL, Sept. 8 (Yonhap) -- Traces of xenon gas, a radionuclide, were detected in South Korea, the nuclear safety agency said Friday, five days after North Korea conducted its most powerful nuclear test.

The the radioactive material, the xenon-133 isotope, was found in the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission's analysis of ground, air and maritime samplings that were collected locally after the latest nuclear test by the North, according to the agency.

Defying international warnings, North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful yet nuclear test Sunday, claiming it was a hydrogen bomb that can be loaded atop an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The detected amount measures 0.43 milibecquerel per cubic meter or 0.03 mBq/㎥, according to the analysis.

The agency is currently tracking down the inflow of the material to conclude whether it is a result of the nuclear test.

The agency added, however, that the amount would not have any health effects as South Korea's background radiation currently remains at the usual level of 50-300 nanosieverts per hour.

SEOUL, Sept. 8 (Yonhap) -- Traces of xenon gas, a radionuclide, were detected in South Korea, the nuclear safety agency said Friday, five days after North Korea conducted its most powerful nuclear test.

The the radioactive material, the xenon-133 isotope, was found in the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission's analysis of ground, air and maritime samplings that were collected locally after the latest nuclear test by the North, according to the agency.

Defying international warnings, North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful yet nuclear test Sunday, claiming it was a hydrogen bomb that can be loaded atop an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The detected amount measures 0.43 milibecquerel per cubic meter or 0.03 mBq/㎥, according to the analysis.

The agency is currently tracking down the inflow of the material to conclude whether it is a result of the nuclear test.

The agency added, however, that the amount would not have any health effects as South Korea's background radiation currently remains at the usual level of 50-300 nanosieverts per hour.

If Fox News keeps this up they will end up an all female network - Even Juan Williams has a cloud in his past -

Breaking: Eric Bolling Out At Fox News

Fox News has parted ways with host Eric Bolling, the network confirmed Friday, just over a month after an exclusive HuffPost report revealed Bolling sent inappropriate text messages to current and former female colleagues.

News of the ouster comes after two HuffPost reports revealed a pattern of inappropriate behavior by Bolling, who co-hosts “Fox News Specialists.” HuffPost’s report, which was based on 14 sources, revealed that at least three current and former Fox colleagues said they had received inappropriate text messages from Bolling, including photos of male genitalia.

The woman wey dey learn gymnastics, just start to waka with Bristol student, Liam Smith, for di first time, when she take fear troway di poo-poo comot for window.

Instead make di thing land for garden, di poo-poo come jam between two windows wey no dey open wide.Di lady decide to carry her thing back; she use head enter the small space wey di poo-poo bin dey, but na so she come trap for there, and trouble start.

Mr Smith say im no get choice but to call fire service make dem help remove di girl, along with her poo-poo.

Washington State University, having lost another 'dropper' lately is hiring a big company to do a review of window safety on campus, and suggest changes and improvements to policy.

WSU get two or three windows fallers each year. The last fellow fell out of his form room window, never the less he succeeded in rending himself brain damaged for like.

Last year window falling prize went to a Sorority Sister who broke her neck, rendering her paraplegic for lif.

Each year there at Washington State University and University of Idaho, too, a good number of these fallers are counted....so much so that folks have started betting on the number between beginning of Fall Semester and Christmas break.

Alcohol and/or drugs are the common elements in all these thoughtless youthful disasters.

By hiring this outside group, WSU is trying to escape legal liabilities.

UFO watchers baffled as three massive ‘alien portals’ mysteriously appear below International Space Station in bizarre footageThough some are convinced the objects are UFOs others are quick to say there are clouds or even iceBy Hannah Crouch8th September 2017, 12:41 pmUpdated: 8th September 2017, 3:19 pm

hClick to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)22COMMENTSUFO watchers have been left baffled by three massive "alien portals" which mysteriously appear below the International Space Station in bizarre footage.

Years ago Quirk tried to buy the urine supply of the International Space Station. He was planning to market the piss to earthlings in small baggies claiming they possessed 'magical "zero gravity" powers'. But the Ruskie demurred. They held out for impossible rubles. In the upshot, all Quirk got was a small suitcase of samples and he used them all for himself. He used to mix them with vodka and ice. O his poor wife in those days ! I never did try the concoction though I was offered many times.

Said it really gave him a 'space buzz' and made him feel like he could do anything until it wore off in a week or two. Not addictive, either.

FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly told the White House that he intends to interview six current and former top staffers in relation to his investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Former Press Secretary Sean Spicer, former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and Communications Director Hope Hicks are all on Mueller’s list, the Washington Post reported Friday.

Mueller also reportedly intends to question White House counsel Don McGahn and one of his deputies, as well as Josh Raffel — a spokesman whom the Post describes as working closely with Senior Adviser Jared Kushner.

Friday on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL), one of President Donald Trump’s competitors in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, had praise for Trump and his administration ahead of Hurricane Irma’s arrival in Florida and in the wake of Hurricane Harvey in Texas.

Bush said Trump’s administration has “done well,” but added that ultimately the performance of the local government would be how hurricane response is measured.

“I think they’ve done well,” Bush said. “I think the president has had the right balance just in terms of his going without creating any kind of distractions from the recovery effort. FEMA has done its job. FEMA has gotten, under Craig Fugate’s leadership, who was our emergency response director, I think had built up really good capabilities. Ultimately though, this is a bottom-up process. You got to have the city of Houston, and other cities – the city of Miami and the county here and the states have to be well-resourced and well-trained and coordinate, and then Washington looks pretty good.”

Tracks perfectly Matt. 4 1-17 but there is nothing to bring back to the people in the way of good news, not even a gift for his friends or wife, much less 'good news'. The Bar represents the world of everyday life for him, while the hurricane environment into which he is ejected represents the world of supernatural wonder.....where the gift of great price is to be gotten.....but even the birds got more than he did.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.